Amorous Disease
by TheMoonAlwaysFalls
Summary: It was nearly ruinous in its intensity, sitting there like a festering disease. -Eames/Arthur; non-graphic sexuality, mild swearing


_It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses._ -Daphne Fielding**  
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There was a sick feeling resonating down in the pit of Eames's stomach, and a pounding headache taking root deep at the base of his skull. It wasn't so much the glass of dream-wine in his hand as the fact that trial architect was playing some God-awful shit music as a kick countdown. Whatever it was, it was off-key and screechy and lyrically foul, but it was catchy, much like the Jamaican stoner music he'd once encountered across the pond. Except the idiot singing was mispronouncing every _Spanish_ word he said.

Eames made two resolutions: jam this idiot architect's iPod five inches into his rectum, and during the next extraction, Eames would play his _own_ music.

There would be at least four minutes of dream-time left according to this countdown. It was nothing more than a warning. He still had plenty of time to finish his wine. The projections at the bar paid him no attention. It was his dream after all. The two guys who went under with him were gone, killed by the projections about an hour ago in dream time. The thought brought tears of laughter to Eames's eyes.

The architect provided a deep, two-layer maze of a city. The man was reasonably talented, but his mazes lacked detail and description. They were bland, reduced to standard form corporate blueprints. Eames believed the architect conjured them from his memory because they had a tendency to run together like watercolors when he wasn't concentrating hard enough. Even the two layers of the dream interfered with each other, causing grotesque manipulations of the surrounding environment like the spliced paradoxical stairs.

The club Eames sat at was the same corporate blah as everywhere else. The architect had quite obviously never been inside of a place like this. He thought a strip club should be at least a _little_ more interesting, or at least have decent music, yet he seemed to be wrong. The naked, dancing women made up for it to some extent; they were his subconscious creations. After all, he'd seen his share of skin bars.

He swallowed the last gulp of his wine. It left a warm sensation in his stomach and numbness on his tongue. It was lovely, but of course, it would be. It was just a dream. Real wine was nothing compared to the sensations and taste the brain could drum up.

He wiped his mouth on the back of his suit sleeve. Perhaps just a little bit of practice was in order before wake-up time. He spotted one of the shapelier women, a waiflike girl with obviously fake tits. With a little concentration, a feeling of dramatic weight loss hit.

The formerly muscular arms were thinner, slighter, and had a painfully fake tan and a hint of body glitter dusting the outsides. He looked down, but could no longer see his feet thanks to the fake breasts. He lifted the now-feminine legs, tanned and dusted with glitter like the arms. Something was wrong, though. It hit him: his feet were still his own. They were the hardest to get right, feet. Toenails, especially.

Women were generally harder to copy than men. They had more parts, more shapes and lines to manage. He had to take care to keep feminine bodies slight so that they didn't look too bulky. The muscles had to be lean, without too much on the sides. The curves had to be rounder, the hips wider. Then there was the matter of the things not normally seen. They had to be in the correct places; otherwise you had a slightly painful mess down below.

Minus the feet, he did a fabulous job copying this projection. Everything was perfectly imitated, right down to the contours of the nose. It flowed from a straight line into a slightly upturned hook at the end; just the right angle. The key was the attention to detail.

Eames looked up at the mirrors on the ceiling. He saw himself, and swept a hand across his face. The light stubble had returned, signaling that he was the regular male Eames again. It was a neat little trick, the ability to forge. It was fun to copy others, their mannerism and their appearances. It was a chance to be someone else for a change.

The kick countdown was getting progressively louder. The idiot architect needed to get something other than this shit music he was blaring. It made his headache all the worse. There was something in this particular sedative that gave him a headache, and now coupled with the music, the pain had become splitting. He'd take some Ibuprofen before the next extraction.

The final notes of the countdown screeched out, and he woke with a start, the IV drip still strung to his arm. He snatched it out without a second thought; it wasn't as painful that time as it had been the first. He went through his post-extraction mental checklist; totem, wallet, genitals –everything important seemed to be in order. Oh, and the partners; he supposed they were slightly important, too.

His partner, other than the architect, was that Arthur twit, some stiff bitch who worked with numbers or something. Eames hadn't really been paying attention when Cobb mentioned what the little bugger actually did. He noticed, though, that the guy never seemed to crack a smile that wasn't for appearances. No ounce of joy or sense of fun; it was all business with this guy. And that was so incredibly boring for someone so incredibly delicious.

Boring was not Eames's style. He liked to be flashy, he liked to be perverse, he liked to upset the natural order of things, to turn society on its heels and make people think for themselves. If anyone could call him boring, they were sorely mistaken.

This Arthur guy, though, he was the epitome of snooze. His neat little suits were always impeccable and clean. His black hair was always slicked back and immaculate. Where did this kid get off on cleanliness? Did he have some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder? No one normal could possibly be as clean as Arthur.

As far as coming out of the extraction, Arthur was fine. Impeccable to the point of irritating, but he looked okay. A little shaken, as Eames made him swallow explosives just as the dream was coming to an end, but he looked so good otherwise. Yet, still so painstakingly spotless. It must be some kind of gift.

Arthur's cleanliness was something of a bother for Eames. He liked to look nice, of course, but there was nothing interesting in the gray and dull corporate chic Arthur had going on. Eames's naturally messy nature screamed at him to muss something up, make a hair fall out of place, scuff a shoe, pull a loose threat from the younger man's sports jacket. Do something to make him less perfect, less beautiful.

Eames stared at the younger man's clean-shaven face. Even his skin was flawless. It was like staring at a particularly well-molded Ken doll or a mannequin. No ounce of emotion, not a blemish or spot in sight. Staring at him was almost eerie.

Arthur noticed his stare. "What?"

"How much hairspray do you use to keep your hair like that?" Eames asked, grinning slightly.

Arthur glared, his neat eyebrows falling together in a dark slash. "Shut up."

Eames jumped up and strode past Arthur on his way to the architect's side. As he slipped past, he dug his fingers through Arthur's hair, scruffing it up so that the highly gelled strands stuck out at odd angles. Arthur made a move to punch him, but he darted out of the way before the blow could land, chuckling.

Eames winked at him and leaned against the wall while the architect spouted useless babble and ran off the different paradoxes he's used. Eames didn't care one way or the other what the tasteless man was spouting; he was more preoccupied with staring at Arthur.

The younger man had produced a comb from seemingly nowhere. He swept it through his dark hair, pulling the thick hanks of follicle back into place with gentle tugs. Eames smiled to himself as he watched Arthur's attempt to rectify his hair situation. His neatness was nothing compared to his imperfections. With the mussed hair and the sleepy eyes, Arthur looked absolutely delectable.

"…so it seems that the paradoxical steps from the first level were interfering with the ones from the second level. I'll have to figure out a way to keep the definition between each level clear so it doesn't happen again," the architect mumbled. He reached over to the iPod station and flipped the switch; the heinous music that blared from it kicked a notch higher.

"That's great," Eames said absently. The music was making his headache worse. He oh-so-suavely reached over and tipped the music player onto the concrete floor where, with a final defiant wail, it promptly broke into pieces.

The architect stopped babbling long enough to pick up his still-intact iPod. He stared at Eames, and without saying a word, stalked out of the building holding the pieces of his broken station. That was the end of one problem.

Arthur watched the architect leave; the man was all in a huff, but his passive aggressive nature wouldn't allow him to take a shot at Eames. He glanced back at offender, who smiled at him with his signature roguish charm.

Arthur shook his head and gently tugged the IV from his arm. The Forger, he called himself. Eames was really something; he'd flirt with anything, drink anything, it didn't matter the consequences. He was a right piece of work.

He had charm, though, Arthur couldn't deny that. It was a rough, almost feral captivating quality. It was over sexualized, but it seemed to fit him. Eames knew it and he obviously liked it, too. With those looks, who wouldn't?

Eames stepped, almost strolled, over to Arthur and sat down in the chair next to him. He reached across the table that separated them and undid two of the buttons on the Arthur's suit, then mussed his hair again. "I like you better when you're not perfect."

"I like you better when I don't have three pounds of explosive carcinogens in my stomach," Arthur snapped back. He tried to button his suit jacket back, but Eames grabbed his hands and pinned them to his sides.

Before Arthur could protest, Eames captured his lips in a rough kiss. The stubble on his cheeks scratched at Arthur's face, coarse but gentle. The curve of his lips pressed against Arthur's in a liquid bow, a waxy chapstick flavor prevalent on his skin. The lips worked against his own, shoving ever harder.

Eames could feel Arthur kissing back, giving to him only slightly. It was just enough to make his skin flush with the heat, and realize just how warm it was in this warehouse. A bead of sweat wound its way down the skin of his back. It was Arthur's lips, hot and surging against his own, that made the flush deepen.

His fingers dug into the younger man's wrists. He was consciously aware that he was dangerously close to breaking the skin, but that was beyond him. He release Arthur's arms, letting one hand tangle in the short, gelled hair and the other hand move to unbutton the front of his trousers. There was a slight hint of a rising erection, _slight_, but still there.

Eames gently slipped his hand down into the waistband of Arthur's suit slacks, tracing the skin lightly. The imprint of the waistband cut grooves into the skin of his hips, and he ghosted over the welts with teasing strokes.

Eames felt Arthur's leg tense, and he broke away just as the other man aimed a kick at him. He dodged before the blow connected, laughing as a deep red blush of embarrassment crept onto the younger man's cheeks. How lovely.

Arthur fumbled frantically with the button of his trousers, trying desperately to ignore the hardening appendage between his legs and the hot feeling of want pooling down in his stomach. His lips felt swollen from where Eames latched on, searing with the desire to have them back against the skin. There were profound crescent-shaped marks on wrists from the forger's short fingernails. He bent double, hoping, daring that Eames hadn't felt the effect his ambush had.

It was a vain, futile attempt. The forger winked at him, licking his lips. "You're welcome, love."

Eames turned tail and vanished through the warehouse door. The loosening feeling of his suit trousers was a welcome one; God forbid the younger man noticed his own discrepancies with his body. A warehouse was not a great place to finish what he'd unintentionally started. He'd merely predicted Arthur would punch him or kick him away. Instead, he'd responded in a way that was so appetizing, Eames decided he would have to invest more time in this interesting little egg.

Arthur began frantically patting down his hair. He grabbed at the buttons of his jacket, forcing them through the connecting loops. _Stupid jackass thinks it's funny_, he thought to himself, venomously tugging at his trousers in an attempt to situate himself. _Stupid goddamned idiot._

He couldn't deny that feeling. The lust digging into his stomach, pooling down in his lower abdomen and crouching there like a poisonous snake. It was nearly ruinous in its intensity, sitting there like a festering disease. He wanted the disease, wanted it more than any woman. It had to be Eames that gave him the disease, the insufferable twat. Damn.

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**Reviews are appreciated. Constructive criticism even more so. Flames are also welcome; I need something to grill my veggie burgers with.**


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